Open Season

A subtle reminder that you may as well be dead for the time you lose doing taxes.

Around this time of year, many of you loyal readers write to me saying, “Cyrus– I would like to start a business, but I’m stymied by taxes!” The simplest advice I can give you is this: don’t pay taxes. After all, they are a chore, especially if you haven’t kept a record of your finances. And you probably shouldn’t bother with keeping any records if you aren’t going to pay taxes, and I recommend burying your money or sinking it all into Wyoming banks, so that way your revenues are invisible and untouchable. But when you start getting into that sort of thing, the process becomes nearly as cumbersome as just paying your taxes in the first place.

Needless to say, money is an undue burden, and you are best rid of it.

This is why, after many long years of business expertise, I work very hard to ensure that all of my US-based businesses have utterly failed by the time the bells of the new year are chiming. And believe me this is hard, not just because so many of my ventures are so wildly successful and pushing them towards financial collapse requires great ingenuity on my part, but because some of them I enjoy immensely, and would like to continue to work at for more than just a years’ time. However, change is a necessary part of life, and what is here today is easily gone by January first. In my case, I’ve found that constant change keeps me sharp, flexible, and constantly acquiring new tools. After all, you can’t be a cobbler without a special shoe mallet, nor can you become a great soda baron without a few tanks of CO2.

The final option I leave you to consider is to simply locate your business in a place where you will not have to pay taxes. Notably, civil war-ravaged countries tend to focus less on taxes, and you can much more easily conduct your business in peace. Just make sure you have an ample security force.

So please. This year, don’t bother Mr. Polly with your tax questions. Take it from me, either don’t do your taxes, relocate to a nation with extremely lax tax laws or a nonexistent or highly unstable government, or simply push your business over the precipice and save yourself the bother. But if you simply must ask me for advice, I am requesting that that year, if you would like I response, please send your question taped to a bottle of single-malt scotch. I will return an answer promptly, and in the same bottle upon which it arrived.